How to Power Shift with Social Cunning and Savvy

Power,
often
thought of one of the driving forces behind man’s will
(see Nietzsche's concept of “der
wille zur macht”) to live.

We see it every day, and it invades our interactions as well as
influencing our every action.

Take a look at a couple of these scenarios:

Scenario A

A man walks into his boss’s office and requests a raise. He gets
turned down.

Another man walks into the same room and proposes a similar offer,
with the intention of walking away. He instead gets the raise.

Scenario B

Two students are studying together, the girl mentions, “You’re a
good friend.”

The male rejects the notion of just friends, and begrudgingly
utters, “Friends? Hardly.”

Scenario C

Two friends are together chatting in high spirits, when a cohort
suddenly comes along.

“Ah, are you this little boy’s friend?” one girl asks flippantly.

The male looks at her slowly, as if only realizing that she might be
talking to him. “Who?” he powerfully and quizzically asks almost as if
in genuine confusion.

The girl corrects herself, “A-ah, are you this guy’s friend?”

... can you see it more clearly now?

It’s not until you reach the upper echelon of dominance that you
start to cherry-pick these shifts of power (hence force called a power shift) out from everyday
situations, and are able to take advantage of navigating through the
ever-changing tides of social dominance.

But using power shifts, and maintaining an air of respect and power
about oneself can be taught and learned, and in today’s article I’m
going to pull off the veil that shrouds these common occurrences in
subtlety and nuance from the eyes of those who haven't paid as much
attention to them yet.

So what exactly is going on, and what is the importance of learning
how to make use of a tool like the power shift for the social
connoisseur?

Being dominant at an art or practice often requires the deep
understanding, subconscious or not, that allows unparalleled
performance. This becomes all the truer when multiple players are
present; it’s almost impossible to
maintain dominance among other practitioners when your skill level is
not up to snuff.

Think about it, what’s more likely? A player being renowned because
he can spike a volleyball or pitch a great fastball in practice, or a
player who can crush an opposing team with aces or being unhittable?

To be dominant, as the definition suggests, inherently conveys that
there is an order, and position, at play.

The volleyball player hits harder than the opposing team can
receive.

The pitcher throws faster pitches than the batter can hit.

A manager of a business assigning tasks to employees.

A ruler directing his generals in a war.

The ruler’s army crushing another country’s force.

The most attractive and confident guy in a classroom or at a
party.

An intelligent mathematician winning a Nobel prize.

Typically you’ll see an order of simplicity, such as A is greater
than B. It does get a bit more complicated with the interplay of
multiple players in things like group conversations, but that’s the
gist of it (players A and B).

Another important aspect to note is that there are varying degrees
of status, which typically are determinant of how high you are and the
breadth of the competitors. Beating
out more competition results in higher levels of power.

The mathematician is dominant over most others, with his status of
prize winner.

The ruler has power over far more than the average peasant, or the
manager with his employees.

The most attractive (not handsome; attractive,
as in knowing how to attract women, and there is a
difference) guy in the room automatically gets assigned the highest
status in the room; just by being there he bests the rest of the males.

So when we look at seduction and social cunning, as a skill rather
than uncontrollable happenstance, we
learn that there ought to be an order to things. This means we
have new variables to manipulate and train, and what’s incredibly
surprising is that next to no one even knows this.

No one really trains their understanding of human nature, apart from
the academics (and us)!

Just by this realization alone of
the power structure between interactions we benefit and put ourselves
ahead of the curb. Our competition is usually very little; it’s
not hard to be the top dog when the rest of the pups are busy suckling
from the teats of the females.

Understanding the Power Shift

The examples I gave at the outset of this article give some great
insights into the common power dynamics scenarios that happen to even
to the average Joe (often largely unbeknownst to him). Let’s break it
down scenario by scenario to better understand the social constructs at
play.

Scenario A: The Boss, and the
Employees

A man walks into his
boss’s office and requests a raise. He gets turned down.

Another man walks
into the same room and proposes a similar offer, with the intention of
walking away. He instead gets the raise.

Let’s go ahead and start assigning out names for these situations.
The employee that had his request for promotion denied will be Employee
A. The successful and more dominant man (disregarding the
boss of course) will be Employee B.

Look at things in terms of order and compliance.

The boss is in the top position, with the compliance of his
employees. He’s the top dog, no bones about it.

Two of those employees, A and B, are below the boss. Both go to him
with equal propositions (overwhelmingly dominant men often require
permission), and with assumingly equal value as both employees
contribute equal amounts of quality and quantity of work.

The X-factor that contributes to
Employee B’s value over A is his compliance. He knows that his
the company values work, and that gives him power over his boss.
Employee A doesn’t realize his actual worth, and thus does not have the
same power to his proposition.

The successful employee’s offer
gets accepted because he introduced less
compliance, and as a result more
power. The boss knows by the suggestion he made, “I want a
raise, or else I may leave,” regardless if true or not, that he has
more options than Employee A. More options often means more power. The
employee played his cards right, and the boss succumbed to his
ultimatum because denying the raise would result in less gain for the
company.

Scenario B: The Girl and the Boy

Two
students are
studying together, the girl mentions, “You’re a good friend.”

The male
rejects the notion of just friends, and begrudgingly utters, “Friends?
Hardly.”

The typical scenario between the study-buddy boy and the attractive
girl. The girl, seemingly out of nowhere, asserts that she enjoys their
friendship.

The boy, like many others have before, protests in rebellion against
his new label.

“Who is she to determine our status?” the boy may be thinking.

The attractive girl is clearly
higher status than the boy, but by how much? His frustration is
not all too unfounded actually; the girl played a little trick on him
to assert her power over him.

By sending an undesirable signal to the boy, she is demonstrating
her superior value. There’s a good chance that this happened because
she knows the boy’s intentions of romance, and is able to use that
against him to establish control.

It could have gone much worse actually (and better), with varying
degrees of shifts of power. Let’s say the boy had three different
personalities, and each has their own response.

“I’m not your friend.”

The more caricatural “bad boy” response, which would
actually be typically better than the lower two.

He completely and utterly rejects any notion of friendship, and
protests in complete rebellion. He plays a high-stakes risky game
because he knows his position better than the others, and has more
options.

“Friends? Hardly.”

The reluctant response but one with enough compliance and less
risk aversion. He feels his value ought to be higher, and is frustrated
at the power-shift she engages with. Regardless, he does not feel the
rewards are high enough, and dares not to commit fully with his
resistance.

Women feel this is completely weak. Neither did he have the
courage to commit to risky rejection nor safe acceptance.

There’s a good reason why the coinage “Average Frustrated Chump”
has the moniker “Chump” attached, while the “Nice Guy” label is devoid of any
mockery.

“Yeah, of course!”

The safe route, the nice guy. He doesn’t want to go against his
authority figure in the interaction. He’s effectively pedestaling
the girl he’s with by showing no interest in rejecting her
power. Any results he gets with the girl would be purely by luck of the
draw.

There is a reason why all three responses fail. These responses are boyish. Real men
don’t deal have to deal with these kinds of things. The bad boy and his
rebellion against authority is something a child would do. The nice guy
and the average chumps likewise fail to be that authority in the
relationship.

There is a better way to handle these kinds of power struggles, but
I’ll come back to that after going through the last example.

Scenario C: The Spirited Group

Two friends are
together chatting in high spirits, when a cohort suddenly comes along.

“Ah, are you this
little boy’s friend?” one girl asks flippantly.

The male looks at
her slowly, as if only realizing that she might be
talking to him. “Who?” he powerfully and quizzically asks almost as if
in genuine confusion.

The girl corrects
herself, “A-ah, are you this guy’s friend?”

There are three people in this situation: the cohort, the male, the
girl.

The girl is clearly more powerful than the male, and she asserts her
dominance by using a type of power shift that’s effect is twofold:

She’s testing the new variable (the cohort) to the dynamic

She’s subsequently asserting power over the male

The male overcomes this perfectly.

If he had accepted her label of “boy” to his friend, instead of
“guy”, both him and the girl would have been granted higher status over
the friend. Think of it as the two becoming partners, their two
status’s are somewhat equal. The cohort may be higher on the rung, but
not by much.

On the other hand, the cohort could have rejected his friend’s new
label of “boy” and defied the woman. Yes, the woman. The woman has
climbed up the likes of the cohort (also, the man). The cohort
struggles against this new dynamic she has introduced, thus being less
powerful.

What he did instead was much better. He completely and utterly
crushed any sort of insubordination between the two. The girl committed
a social faux pas and he capitalized on it excruciatingly by making a
fool out of her. He did it with a single word: “Who?”

He prevented his friend from slipping down the social ladder, and
also brought her down for trying to ladder climb. His friend and the girl are now equal, and
all is well for the cohort as he stands at the top over them while
looking down.

He also handled this smoothly, through his graceful manner. If he
had asked the same question in fury, rather than curiosity, the result
would have been the same. However, the difference lies later on, as
this would have been power through dictation: a very abrasive and
underhanded method.

You would be surprised at how subtle this would actually happen in a
real conversation. The girl would have made a mistake, and corrected
herself as if the cohort had not heard properly (thus the embarrassment
being only from an internal feeling, rather than public shame). The boy
would have thought nothing of it, and the cohort would have received
her warmly with a pleasant, “Ohhh! Yeah!”

Thus, the power shift occurs with
subtlety, the girl loses little face, yet by overreaching and
attempting to exert dominance and failing, she has lowered her social
standing relative to those she attempted to dominate socially;
thus, she dies (socially speaking) on her own sword, but the cohort
reassures her that everything is okay.

Well what next?

How to Capitalize on a Power
Shift

Here’s a little secret that’s rarely understood: power is not made by strength, but weakness.

Imagine two martial artists in their respective stances, ready to
battle it out. They trade fierce glances and are consequently frozen in
stature. You’ve seen it in movies (possibly with guns drawn), or maybe
even in real life. MMA fighters will often walk around a bit before
engaging, or stay out of range of their opponent.

Why is this exactly?

It’s quite simple: they know
instinctively that the second a mistake is made, it will be capitalized
on. If they strike and miss, the opponent will counter by taking
advantage of that opening and punish them for it. Both fighters know
this, so they are stuck in a perpetual standstill.

Offense is often said to be the best defense, but that is not the
case for the master-class. Offense is
only reliably useful when there are grave differences in strength, or
when some sort of disparity is present.

Our bad boy in scenario B is playing a very all-or-nothing style of
aggressive play. Any sort of conflict brought his way is crushed with
his own strength. It’s a gamble. If his opponent is weak enough, this
opponent will succumb to his might. If the opponent happens to be
stronger, the bad boy will be ruined instead. “I’m not your friend,” he says.
The girl responds with, “Douche,”
and leaves. The bad boy of course now has to chase after to get what he
wants (which never actually works, and never should be done).

Our nice guy and frustrated chump are too afraid to fight, so we
can’t even consider their play-style in this game.

The dominant man (like the cohort) approaches it differently. He’s waiting for that moment when the other
messes up. He always capitalizes, and consistently gets rewarded by
doing so.

You’ll see an incredible amount of these kinds of exchanges in war
tactics and the history of them.

Take the teachings of Sun Tzu and his Art of War for instance: something
heralded as a masterpiece on tactics and conflict, not only in the
military world but in the business management one too. By itself,
without any prior experience, it’s hard to see its true value. If you
deconstruct some of what he has to say however, you’ll see it’s
incredible teachings.

Here are some quotes (muddled by translation of course) from the
immortal man:

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in
the attack.

To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme
excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's
resistance without fighting.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be
extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you
can be the director of the opponent's fate.

The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our
own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by
the enemy himself.

I won’t quote any more as to not overload you, despite there being
so many goodies to pick out.. but hopefully you can see how this ties
into my previous ramblings using martial artist as an example.

This is the reason why sprezzatura, gracefulness, and humbleness are such effective
manners of achieving high social status. These operate on
the passive style of subtlety, and allow for your opponent (such as
your date, your boss, your audience, etc.) to make mistakes that you
can capitalize on (while also limiting the errors you can make).

In the first quote, Sun Tzu mentions possibility of victory in the
opponent’s attack. This is exactly it -- again, power comes from weakness, not by
application of strength. Again he mentions it, in the fourth
quote: we are our own defeaters and our enemies are theirs.

If you don’t believe me (or Sun Tzu) then try to think of how many
ways there are to make a blunder or insult someone and then how many
ways to do that without uttering a sound (I can think of only one per
culture). You can’t do either very
well without opening your mouth.

We can even see this stuff in nature, with things like spiders and
their webs. Waiting for their prey to fall into their hands is much
more effective than going around and hunting. Trapdoor spiders will
wait until unsuspecting victims crawl above in a moment of
defenselessness, and then will strike.

In war it’s often used to fight against vastly superior forces. Sun
Tzu used his tactics against the Chu army (of 300,000) with his
comparatively meager force of 30,000 men.

In the Vietnam War, America lost despite an overwhelming advantage
in strength because the same tactics were applied. The Viet Cong
effectively used guerrilla tactics, and had no central force (see Sun
Tzu’s concept of formlessness in the third quote). This made it
impossible for the American military to do any substantial damage. In
fact, quite the opposite occurred when the Vietnamese waited for air
drops, and then capitalized on them by wiping each one out one by one.
Other tactics were of course used, but the result was that America
retreated and Viet Cong had won.

Formlessness, mysteriousness,
waiting, and capitalization; all these make up the back bone of the
master’s road to victory over challengers. It is the opponents
who give him the opportunity to raise his position, by entering his
sphere and giving him mistakes to capitalize upon.

While I don’t want to advocate any sort of adversarialism between
you and those around you, it’s good to learn the different sort of
power shifts that commonly occur.

Here’re a few of the likely ones you’ll encounter and might be
stumped by (without this guide, of course):

#1: The Friend Zone and Other
Statuses

Ah, hello my infamous friend. We are back. I’ve always said to those
I speak with about this is that, “Girls don’t put men in the friend zone, the men do it for
them.”

It can’t be any truer.

The word “friend” is just a word; it really means nothing. In fact, the Italian
language has 20 or more such words just for relationship statuses. So
why does it matter? It actually doesn’t.

Words that dictate status (and my use of the word dictate is most
literal), such as:

boyfriend,

lover, and

friend

... are typically just that. In a brawl, this is more like a left
jab. It’s to poke around and get a feel for the situation when he or
she has a hunch, a gut feeling, of weakness.
It’s only when you REACT to it when things start to tumble downhill.

Imagine a suave guy like James Bond, and try to picture him (if you
can...) getting friend-zoned by a girl. What do you think he would do? Scoff at the
idea? Maybe, but even that seems a bit too unrefined. He’s more
likely to just sip his martini and continue conversation as if she had
never said it (much like the example earlier of the cohort pretending
he didn’t hear or understand the girl).

Any attention you give something
gives it power. This means even the little stuff with reactions
like scoffing, or strange looks. The more you contest the more you show
your weakness. Granted, it’s often not enough of a shift the balance of
power over to another person, but these things work like a war of
attrition. The sands of time eventually corrode over your body and
you’ve lost your former self.

The best of this comes with the understanding of the situation, and
when you start noticing others doing this to you by trying to redirect
focus or denying compliance.

I added some tags on the end of each line to help you understand
what’s going on by using the previous martial arts example as an
analogy.

Guy:
I thought we were friends? [jab]

Girl:
Well we are more like acquaintances... [block]

Guy:
So we can’t be friends? [jab]

Girl:
We don’t really hang out often... [block]

Guy:
So what are we supposed to do then? Go on a date? [side-steps]

Girl:
What would we even do? [side-steps]

You can see where this is quickly going... The guy knows she’s
interested in at least some modicum of romance between the two, and so
he presses her a bit to get what he wants (well, what they both want
actually).

Her strategy of redirecting, while good at maintaining her image and
preventing any sort of chase dynamic, is not the best solution. It’s
immediately obvious due to the attention and importance she’s assigning
to the word that it has some value to her, so she’s avoiding
giving a simple yes or no response.

For the guy however... he got what
he want with pure cunning. He’s a
sly fox, and he knows that people tend to like to follow the path of
least resistance.

For her, in this situation, he knew that his “jab,” the label, was
enough for him to make a weakness appear in the girl. She feels she
needs to respond, and doesn’t want to comply, so she avoids answering.
This is troubling for her, so he
offers her an escape from this dynamic
by proposing a date (indirectly).

She then follows along, as it’s easier. Along the way however, she’s
been defeated. She succumbed to his slyness and is now being strung
along (to somewhere she wants to go, mind you).

This is what girls see and feel
every time they assign you two a
relationship status. She doesn’t know exactly how you feel, but
she’s
got a pretty good idea. She knows exactly the right buttons to push to
get you to do what she wants (like trap you in the friend zone as a
backup plan for later on in case she needs you then).

Again this happens with not only the friend zone, but the ever
humbling, “I have a boyfriend,” line. This one is a bit tougher to
handle, and I always think loudly in my head “SO?”

It’s another reason why routines have such a low success rate. You
can’t possibly plan ahead for all these scenarios, and plan out
responses to
them. You’ve just got to learn the elementary aspect of the concept of
non-reaction, and start to think in your head instead: “Oh, she’s doing
this as a way to power-shift things in her favor... what are her
motives?”

Then respond.

#2: Labels and Attrition

This one is a dirty little trick, used often by many. The idea is
this: find a weakness, such as a pet peeve or dislike of a label, and
relentlessly weaken until compliant.

It’s very subtle and gradual, otherwise it wouldn’t be very
effective.

--- first appearance ---

Guy:
I don’t know, she wouldn’t leave me alone.

Girl:
That’s kind of being a jerk.

Guy:
Huh? No way.

Girl:
….

--- a couple days later ---

Girl:
You’re such a jerk.

Guy:
*laughs* I know!

Girl:
Right?

--- a couple weeks later ---

Girl A:
Hey, this is my friend... he’s a jerk.

Guy:
Ugh.

Girl B:
Like jerk-off?

Guy:
Wow.

*everyone laughs*

--- a month later ---

Girl A:
Hey, this is jerk.

Girl B:
Hi, jerk! That’s a weird name.

Guy:
Yeah...

Girl A:
Yeah, jerk!

Eventually it can get out of hand and leading to bullying, but
that’s
one example right there of attrition. It
can happen with any label, and it’s
used to shift power over either readily (“Don’t do that, that’s
douchey”) or gradually over time.
At the start the conversation was
normal, but by the end the guy’d gained a new nickname.

Even if you deny this vehemently, it will still be a question of who
breaks first. It’s the age old paradox of an
unstoppable force meets an
immovable object. In the story of the Teumessian Fox (destined to
never be caught) against Laelaps (destined to catch everything), Zeus
himself had to step in and break up the fight by turning the two into
stone (or stars).

It’s better to not surround yourself with these types of girls or
people (who will engage in petty labeling and ladder-climbing
one-upmanship), and instead make friends with those higher up on the
social ladder.
Just be wary when this happens, and don’t engage.

#3: Assignments and Tasks

A common way of gaining compliance is through requesting, assigning,
or demanding tasks. In social psychology these tactics are called
foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face. There are others,
but these two
I’ll focus on (and have partially brought up before).

It can be done both ways, starting low and gradually working up (I’d
skip the first request in practice however):

Guy:
Hey, can I buy you a drink?

Girl:
Okay, sure.

Guy:
Let’s sit over there?

Girl:
Okay, sure.

Guy:
Move over a bit.

Girl:
Okay.

Guy:
Let’s go home.

Girl:
Okay!

Next one. You will rarely see this actually intentionally done, but it
will pop up on your scanners here and there when people start making
demands on purpose to test your compliance:

Girl:
Buy me a coffee!

Guy:
Okay, sure.

Girl:
Yay!

It’s a bit out of place and extremely clumsy, but most don’t notice
it. People can actually get away with such extreme blunders, and
no one
really notices. I remember a request from a student to a
professor in a class I attended once that was interesting along these
lines; actually it wasn’t a question, it was a very abrasive demand:
“Move
down the page to the bottom.”

I was surprised he got away with that one, typically you’d see
some sort of gradual buildup. You don’t normally see requests made that
curtly and forcefully that early
on in the dynamic between two people who haven’t established compliance
yet, when requests are still being ramped up.

The rest of the learners in attendance are asking questions, like
“Can you ___?”
while one fellow blows through social norms and demands in an
authoritarian
tone. You’re asking for whiplash if that’s how you approach all your
engagements -- without an ounce of subtlety.

This is the advantage to those with
positions of power: it’s
difficult to say “No” when you’re paying your physical therapist and
she tells you to roll over.

Again, don’t react to this or give into these demands for
compliance. Navigate using social grace. Here’s a better response:

Girl:
Buy me a coffee!

Guy:
I dunno, isn’t that too date-like?

Girl:
It’s not a date it’s just a coffee!

Guy:
Is it? Okay, then you should buy me one instead.

Girl:
What!? Fine.

In all likelihood, you won’t even run into these requests and
demands too often as you advance at dating and seducing women.

You can use these to gauge how you’re doing, and the shifting of
power. If you see higher numbers of
demand-like requests, you need to work on
your fundamentals and may presently be at an equal or lower status.
Alternatively, if you’re
starting to get risk-averse requests, like “Can I get your number?” or
“Can we go over there?” then you know you’re doing really well.

If you’re starting to get
permission requests, that’s a tall order
to fill. It means you’ve got to do one thing, and start moving
her. She
really likes you so she is playing it really safe; you’ve got to save
her from this and take her home.

Another end of the spectrum would be working your way down, this
might have a better success rate for the girl:

Girl:
Buy me a car.

Guy:
Uhh...

Girl:
Okay, how about just a coffee?

Guy:
Sure, I guess.

Notice how most of these responses are typically in three forms:

Compliance: “Okay, sure.”

Half-Compliance: “Sure,
I guess;” “Friends? Hardly...”

Rejection: “Uhh..;” “I’m
not your friend.”

#4: Laughing and Playing Along

Another
peculiar construct that happens is others laughing at
something funny you’ve said, and just in general thinking you’re
funny... when you’ve done nothing of
the sort.

Trying to have a real conversation with a person like this who
laughs at everything you say is incredibly frustrating. It’s like
almost talking to a wall, because anything you say will be played along
with.

If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your heading thinking...
wait a minute... I didn’t make a joke, and what I said was NOT funny.
Why did they laugh? That’s
where the presence of social influence
starts to seep in.

If you are with two girls and you say, “Okay, I’m going over here
where it’s warm,” and they both laugh as if you had told them a joke,
does that make sense? None at all, unless
you realize that the people
around you might happen to be catering to your whimsies, and
like
stated earlier -- suckling at the teat.

Feel-good people try to boost their statuses by making others feel
welcome.

Stop it.

Even I catch myself doing this sometimes when I laugh at what I say,
or in response to others. It takes away your challenge that you
present, defuses tension, and makes you more attainable.

If you laugh at what you’re saying, then
it can be considered
compensating in anticipation of not being well received.

If you laugh at what others say, then you’re sucking up and social
climbing, or maybe you’re too afraid of what others think of you to go
against the grain.

Conversely,

If people laugh at what they
are telling you, then they are
grandeur-izing what they say to leave an impression on you.

If people laugh at what you
say, then they are effectively
pedestaling your status, or are too afraid to go against it.

If you catch others doing this then this is another easy way to
gauge the shift of power (as long as you’re not telling actual jokes).

#5: Kissing and Sex

This is so incredibly common a power shift for men to shoot their
feet off with all the
time, and yet women do not. Women
understand this dynamic MUCH better
than men, and take great care of it. This is typically driven by
the
same motives as the friend-zone.

Ricardus went over this really well in a full length article (which
could be considered extension/continuation of this one, even if written
at an earlier date) about how sex changes the control of the
relationship:

How to Rule the World (of
Seduction)

The ideal position to be in is not
one of dominance, but of someone
who faces no opposition. A better term for this idyllic
situation would
be ruler or emperor, as there are no other players in the game. They
face no opposition. The word “dominant” is more appropriate to social
situations because this is such a hard position to be in.

I did make a joke in the article on stress coping techniques that,
“We
don’t really teach you on this site how to overthrow nations (yet),”
but it seems I actually have begun to.

We can progress this trait of dominance and understanding of power
dynamics in society quite far, and it helps us get what we want. The
goal you must seek out is not that of a dictator or a subordinate, but
a ruler. Through grace and pleasantry you can make others want to work
with you (and for you).

Just remember, non-reactance.

It’s not a battle or conflict unless you
make it one, and I wrote
this article with the intention of helping you pick out when others are
using a power shift on YOU.

The powerful don’t deal with opposition, not because they are
against it but they don’t acknowledge its presence or significance. The
governing bodies that serve them are the ones that deal with acts of
aggression. Granted, you can’t always opt for non-reactance and
ignoring social climbing, but understanding them prevents quite a bit.

Once you get better at it...

You might find that if you keep quiet, things may go your way more
often than not. You might find that if you stop praising yourself that
others may do it for you.

You might find that if you compliment others, they will bring you
gifts and ask you out on dates.

And you just might happen to find whatever it is you’re looking for
if you keep at it.

Stay powerful,

- Eric

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Comments

While reading this it reminded me of Ghandis passive resistance, which is the old immovable force. :)

A lot of this stuff is the thing I have pegged, you can come off as an incredibly strong guy by not doing things that the weak and meek would do. As an incredible stubborn guy I find this tactic the best way. I don't make a big deal about anything really if a problem needs sorting out then it gets sorted out, otherwise it's not a problem and that's a philosophy I've stuck to. Also being non-judgemental is a part of this.

I'm finding it really hard to think of what I wanted to say right now, but this is every bit as good as some of Chases posts (and I'm sure he'll agree).

I actually love Ghandi's practices and I try to use that for some basis for my moral constructs. I wrote this article without happening to think of him though, and I might have incorporated some of that into this article if I had remembered.

You're spot on, the most vibrant people I have met throughout my life are the ones who are ecstatic and non-confrontational. They diffuse tension and conflicts simply through their immovable nature that absorbs those around them. It's hugely about being non-judgemental, and I want to make that the subject for one of my articles. Thanks for reminding me.

I find myself in the same position, I can't put my thoughts into words.. And when I do sometimes it can get a bit too long and I end up writing 5k+! It's difficult.

Hey Eric, I was just thinking about how to get in contact with you. I just wanted to say thanks for writing the article about stress coping and I wanted to ask, what's the fastest best way to burn belly fat? (specifically the lower abs)?

Questions about the article for you and Chase. what if you laugh just because you think everything is funny, should you tone it down and not laugh like you said?

What kind of compliments are you giving people to buy you things and ask you on dates? How do you not look like a suck up?

The jist I got from your post was, ignore everything. How can I ignore when I have anger problems and rage builds up inside me because I'm feeling like a punk by not saying anything back? Thank you!!!!!

What you're talking about with belly fat is spot-reduction, and while the main consensus is that it's impossible this isn't actually true. There's multiple ways -- liposuction, cryotherapy, subcutaneous mobilization with yohimbine.

What you need to focus on however is lowering overall body fat, and gaining muscle. If you're already in the 10% bodyfat range (which is unlikely, but still possible) and having trouble with abs, then look at the leangains site, he has some good stuff covering stubborn fat mobilization.

I tend to have the bad habit of laughing a bit too much, and I could serve to reduce some of it. I'm unaware of what Chase does, but typically you want to be more stoic as it's often seen as a very manly and attractive trait.

Compliments is a bit hard to specifically point out, but I used it as a general example in this article to shift focus. Focusing on other people and making them feel worthy/special is key to getting them to do things for you. Another is having a high value, and being very attractive. Being a suckup is when you are on the opposite end of this, by giving gifts/compliments in return for value. Just compliment as if it were simply a comment -- "Oh, you look nice", "That's a cool shirt", etc.

And it can really suck bottling things up. It's an image thing (also working on article for this), where you kind of hide a part of yourself from others. In time it will go away, but just relax a bit. If you're worried about being a punk then you're already assigning too much value to this stuff. There are 7 billion people in the world and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of interactions that you'll have, so getting angry isn't a good use of your energy (or stress!).

Hey Eric, I really enjoyed your post, there are a few things I don't understand though...

Sometimes you guys say to ignore people, then you say it's not good to ignore people, now you're saying don't react, other times flash them a sexy smile. Also, I've read in a post how if someone slips up in a social interaction, as the alpha male you should react so the person doesn't feel stupid, now you're saying don't react and don't try to make people feel good/suck up and climb the social ladder. Then at the end of your post you say it's good to give people compliments because they'll come give you gifts...?

Could someone clarify this for me? A lot of times I feel I read the blogs and there's a lot of 'back and forth' going on. Maybe it's my interpretation, but this has happened more than once, and without a clarified interpretation it's hard to understand what you're truly advocating!

It's hard to teach something like seduction or social skills, because there are a lot of possible solutions. It's like playing golf where you have multiple clubs/putters to choose from, all of which will work but some better than others.

There are also optimal strategies, and suboptimal ones. There are also paths that others take that are optimal, and also suboptimal, and having to deal with those.

For power, the most optimal one is not receiving any confrontation or having to respond in the first place.

So let's take the question "Do you like me?" as the confrontation.

Optimal Route: She doesn't ask in the first place as you're too high status for her to take a risk like that.
Suboptimal Route 1: She asks, but right after she does something in the distance (like a group starts a fight) grabs your attention, and then you come back to her with a new question to change topics. "So what have you been up to?"
Suboptimal Route 2: She asks you but you just stare at her in confusion, she quickly adds "I'm just kidding! haha"
Suboptimal Route 3: You smirk and respond, "Why do you ask?"
Kinda Bad Route 1: You tell her you really really like her
Bad Route 2: You hide that you like her and say "You're just a friend".

The list of possibilities is endless, and some are correct, some are perfect (like not having to deal with the situation in the first place) and some are bad but you can still get away with. It's also really hard to rate each response, because the tone is vastly important, and the situation can be widely different in every scenario.

These things really add up over time, and it's less than the actual responses themselves but the cards you let be shown. If you're showing your cards and she knows you really like her, then you're giving power over to her. Likewise the opposite is true, and you can "use that against her".

It also gets even more complicated with exchanges with groups, and everyone's status. To tell you what to do exactly for every situation is just a nightmare, and mostly it should be done based on gut experience. The article was intended to bring to the surface of some possible exchanges and their effects on the shifting of power, not to control it.

The compliments is again not about what you actually say, but the cards you hide. Like my answer to the previous comment above, it's easy to say something like "Oh, I like your shirt" with no strings attached. If you go up and say, "Hey you're really adorable" that shifts power over to the girl. Despite shifting power, it's still better than playing the nice guy and not showing any cards at all and not playing the game.

So If I understand the concept right :
I'm thinking that what we should do usually in these situations is to think what James Bond would do in that situation and do exactly what our logics would tell us he would do. Is that right?

For example, on the occasion when everyone just laugh at what we're saying when we're being serious, we should just give them a Wise over Stupid look and smile and slowly turn our head towards another side. Just ignoring them since they will not listen.

This is not really the answer you're looking for, but James Bond might not always be the right guy for the job..

Imagine being at a house party having a beer with friends, not exactly the scenario you would place him in, right?

In general though we can take some of the archetypes that he is known for (in particular: suaveness), and apply them to most situations.

If you always ignore, you might even be thought of as a chump. It's really hard to say "always ignore, never stick up for yourself" and be correct. It's a good practice to get into, but again -- these things are always situation and more of a gut feeling.

I will say however that if you're put in a situation where you are trying to be serious, and you're being laughed at then you've got a problem. People need to take you seriously, and if you're having this problem then it's a problem with status.

Power is not about status. It's about knowing what you want from life and going for it. Everyone has power, but not everyone knows how to exercise it properly. For that all you need is experience, and you get it by going after what you want and learning in the process how to achieve it :-) And you can never have power to control others, only a blind illusion of control. If you try to control others you will live a very miserable life. Pursuing women is an exercise of power, but getting women or even money doesn't make you powerful. It's what you do after you get them that tells the world who you really are... a god or a poodle :-)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being friends, provided it is quid pro quo.

If you are only after the woman for sex and she mentions friends, a reply is not even necessary. The one-up of information and subtle, careful use of it greatly roots dominance. A direct, prolonged, probing look into her eyes after such a statement should quell that. If not, move on.

If the woman may be able to help you advance your career, gain you important contacts, insights into a competitor or another woman of your desire, then it would be childish to dismiss her as a friend because of your sexual ego.

Go with your intuition on it, but any such friendship should have a well-defined and productive gain for you.

Hey Eric, great article
However, I have a situation:
I met someone I knew from long ago as I was speaking to a girl, and he tried to bully me (I was a different person back then). So I was talking to the girl as he called:" hey, assh*le"! I followed your advice and slowly turned to him and said:" who?, but he simply repeated:" yea, you, looser." I was caught of guard by this and returned an insult, but I'm not sure if this was the best of of answering. What should I do next time? Please answer!
Your loyal reader
Red